Messages - DionysianDeath

I've recently realized that everything grind-core could have done to become something valuable is actually already realized by bands like Beherit: give the most primoridal, cthonic 'metal' essences their most basic form, and then dispense with any unnecessary embellishment.

Also, a note on Bolt Thrower: Their first two albums are the most successful synthesis of death metal and punk ever. There is no dissonance between the two forms at all.

"The image of our band is totally unambiguous. It is one of nature and sadness, not Teutonic strength. We have no lyrics that refer to any right wing ideas. We never use images that could be misinterpreted. Everyone in our scene at home knows we are a left-wing, progressive band. We, as individuals, have long histories in feminist, environmentalist, anti-capitalist punk culture. Anyone who meets us realizes very soon what kind of people we are."

This music is Olympia-metal in every way. Their inane ideology definately bleeds into their music. You can't seperate the withered, weakling moralism of their ideas from the sentimental droning of their albums. You're very much correct about the Sonic Youth influence, by the way.

So, having established that things have appearances and physical natures, and that despite the fact that there is a relationship between the two, the physical nature of a thing is independent of its appearance..... Do things have any other nature besides the ones identified in the last few posts?

I second Summoning as a very consistent band. Another that comes to mind is Incantation. Though production has become better over time, they've maintained the spirit of Onward to Golgotha and death metal in general.

I was actually going to add Incantation, but as I thought about it, I realized that there is a slow but steady qualitative descent present in their works. The first two are excellent and pure in their expressions. Everything afterwards seems increasingly unfocused and frustrated.

Change obviously has no inherent value. Having discovered the proper means of communicating a certain aspect of reality, why would one ever be compelled to change this means? If one examines the art of all previous "Traditional" societies, be they the of the European middle-ages, the Viking societies or the primoridal Celtic civilizations, what we find is an almost completely fixed means of artistic and religious expression. This is because these peoples understood that only so many things (those which are most real) are worth expressing, and that there is always a contextually appropriate means of doing this, tailored to the needs of their race, in the most full and broad sense of that word.

This is why I become so annoyed by people who think that "metal needs to change and grow" in any sort of formal sense. Metal does not need to establish new techniques. It only needs to master the ones it has with the goal of finding the most pure expression of the reality it symbolizes. In other words, metal needs to understand what it is, not transform into something else.

In terms of extremely consistent bands, Angelcorpse is a good example, though I thought that their most recent album was somewhat of a less-pure expression of the "Angelcorpse Essence". I've recently been exploring Havohej (never liked them in my earlier youth), and it seems to me that they are extremely consistent about what they are fundamentally communicating, even if they occasionally employ some variation in form to achieve this. Thoughts on this band specifically, I would appreciate.

All due respect, you are barking the wrong tree here. Mathematics could and should be an indispensable method for metaphysical understanding, as verbal symbolism is, but you come here acting like charlatan and smartass. You don't build bridges that way, no sir.

I agree that it could and should be.... and would further point out that it has been and shall be.

Regardless, Neoclassical's point is valid when we take into consideration the way in which the vast majority of modern humans conceive of mathematics: a system of measuring increments of a fully quantitative nature. That mathematics corresponds at all to the qualitative domain is a concept which is more or less extinct, except outside of inane pop-numerology and movie-star Kabbalah bullshit. I doubt that even the bulk of modern mathematicians ever really have much of a sense of this, at this point.

There is nothing wrong with "math", or the "hard sciences" or any of these other disciplines, except that they have been stripped of their actual value and significance, and made into tools which perform no other role than measuring the "purely physical". This is a problem, because there is really no such thing as the "purely physical".

A lot of the arguments regarding Tradition on this forum and on Corrupt seem to stem from a misconception of what it means to recognize an order of reality "beyond" the physical. The basic assumption is that to recognize such an order would mean to consequently deny all things that occur on the temporal plane (of perception). This isn't the case. Tradition is not "denial of the world", except insofar as the "world" consists of a network of bad ideas and perceptions which distort reality into a demonic/perverted/incomplete caricature of itself, i.e materialism or naturalism - two isms that fail to understand material and nature. Tradition consists of the body of knowledge that recognizes the whole of reality, and incorporates this knowledge into every aspect of "human life" using language which is more than (but still incorporates) that of pure rationality.

This is challenging for many people of the ANUS/Corrupt mentality for what seems to be two major reasons.

1.) It makes "Judeo-Christianity" (ultimately, a misnomer) coherent, revealing it as something not at all describable as an "insane desert religion" or arbitrary moral tyranny. Recognition of the "Judeo-Christian" doctrine actually identifying and containing universally valid truth would require a reassessment of the idea that Judeo-Christian and Indo-European ideas are merely "projections of the Aryan/Jewish psyche" that never link up with each other or contain any sort of objective, impersonal, supra-human element. This is threatening because it calls into question the absolute value and meaning of 'race' - although some reflection should reveal that it doesn't obliterate the meaning of race, so much as move it down a few notches on its hierarchy of importance/meaning.

2.) Some people here are actually just materialists, though they may seek to obscure this fact by offering a more pleasing/romantic interpretation of materialism... which ultimately changes nothing. This reveals itself through the fixation with hard-sciences, and the reliance on raw physics, genetics, neuroscience and neuropsychology to explain virtually everything. This is not to say, of course, that physics, genetics, neuroscience and neuropsychology are fields of knowledge that reveal nothing at all, or have no use.... Only that they have no use when taken in a void, and reliance on their methods and languages over all others suggests the presence of a mind which fundamentally cannot understand reality except for isolating its physical components and examining them in a void. But more than anything else, the materialist mindset reveals itself by suggesting quantitative solutions to qualitative problems, as though reality (human or otherwise) can simply be altered by moving things around as opposed to adjusting their fundamental nature.

At some point, I think that ANUS/Corrupt will overcome these problems. At this point, I think our ability to understand metal (as well as the whole of art) will dramatically increase, not to mention our understanding of the sphere of activity we can very crudely refer to as "politics" and what our role is within it. No doubt this post will cause some people to internally quick and scream, sneer or otherwise shut their brains off, but I hope that a few people can still themselves enough for a short while to simply think on these issues.

I'm just trying to point out that you're misrepresenting Judeo-Christianity.

I'm not.

Personal God + morality = individual comparison to God.

You're so busy waxing dualist that you aren't listening to the argument: the Pagan worldview kept God-as-man out of the equation, and made the gods a force of nature, and that order of nature -- that process -- was what they revere.

Traditionalists, for example, tend to try to make dualistic what isn't, forgetting that a process MANIFESTED in an ongoing physical order means the physical is as essential as the abstract. Schopenhauer -- far brighter than Guenon, Evola and Shakespeare combined -- points this out in the first chapter of TWWR:I.

I keep pointing out to you that the "personal God" as literal, individuated sentience is a bastardization of genuine Judeo-Christian doctrine. In these doctrines, God is an abstract absolute that contains and unifies the whole realm of principles. I am also trying to make the point that while there is a correct way to understand paganism - recognition of the pantheon as the totality of metaphysical relationships and principles.

The main argument I was challenging here was that Judeo-Christianity hinges on anthropomorphism. It simply DOES NOT. Much more so than the pagan systems, which invariably have used human-like symbols to represent cosmic realities, traditional Judeo-Christianity dispenses with that which is purely human in its symbolism.

However, these differences in semiotics asside, both doctrinal systems point towards the same point. There is no true schism between them. The only way one can be erected is through ignorance or deliberate guile.

Regarding the supposed 'dualism' that I and other 'Traditionalists' slip into (I'm not even sure why this is relevant to what we were arguing about).... This is also false. Heirarchy does not imply dualism. As I have said, over and over again on these forums and on the other one, there is not an antagonism between form and essence, manifestation and principle. One is contingent, however, on the other. IIt is also worth pointing out that the Traditionalist thinkers themselves deny any antagonism between the world of manifestations and the world of principles - but this isn't the same thing as denying distinctions.

To summarize with some words of Guenon:

"All that is, in whatever mode it may be, necessarily participates in universal principles, which are the eternal and immutable essences contained in the permanent actuality of the divine Intellect; consequently, one can say that all things, however contingent they may be in themselves, express or represent these principles in their own manner and according to their own order of existence, for otherwise they would only be a pure nothingness. All things, in every order of existence, are connected and correspond to one another so as to contribute to a universal and total harmony; for harmony, as we have already said, is nothing other than the reflection of principial unity in the multiplicity of the manifested world; and it is this correspondence that is the true foundation of symbolism."

However, painting the "Abrahamic" faiths as silly cults that worship man-gods beyond the clouds seems intellectually dishonest, or at the very least, ignorant of basic Judeo-Christian concepts of what "God" is, especially within Judaism and Islam. Much more so than the Indo-European religious doctrines as embodied by the Celtic and Nordic beliefs, the Judeo-Christian concept of the divine dispenses with anthropomorphism... In fact, as "pagan" thinker Alain de Benoist points out in a polemic against Judeo-Christianity, the Indo-European concept of the deity really refers to something in a very different category, very much a human-like intelligence or being, while the "Abrahamic" concept of God refers to something that is much more abstract and less isolated to a specific intelligence.... The Judeo-Christian "god" is the totality/unity of metaphysical principles, as opposed to something that is a manifested, individuated being. Christianity manages to bridge these distinctions by making Christ the localized divine being, which is the temporal manifestation of the faceless/formless/abstract, beyond-human absolute.

I think you're confused about the nature of what is being discussed here. Multiple Gods, in the Nordic-Roman-Hindu-Pagan tradition, are manifestations of Godhead, which is the concept (probably through India, Egypt and/or Greece) that the Abrahamic religions are trying to assess. The Christian God is anthromorphic in his relationship to the individual; the Pagan godhead (equivalent to use of "God" in Judeo-Christianity) is anonymous, universal, and only makes sense in a cosmic context, but is manifested as symbolic gods. This is what you and/or de Benoist seem confused about -- ANUS/CORRUPT suffer no such etymological confusion.

No, I understand the significance of the pagan pantheon. I'm just trying to point out that you're misrepresenting Judeo-Christianity. While it is true that in many contemporary Christians seek a "personal relationship with god" in the most vulgar sense, this has not always been the case. It is a uniquely Lutheran corruption which has only gotten worse over the centuries.

It's just not true that the distinction (if there really is any meaningful one) between the doctrines you praise and those that you revile is one of anthropomorphism. Consider the existence, for example, of the Kabbalah. The Kabaalah is a system employing mathematics (of a qualitative variety!) to describe the metaphysical relationships between different points of creation and "God". Nothing could be more impersonal or disinclined to give the Divine Absolute a human face.

Regarding the conversation about mathematics, I'll just point out that the 'ancients' didn't think of math in a wholly quantitative light. Everything that now falls under the domain of math, science, etc, was once incorporated into a sacred science/art.

You're going to get some really misinformed answers, because you're asking a categorical question and not a syncretic one.

The real question is: what interpretation of religious thought did these composers have?

The answer is that most, while putatively Deists or Christians, embraced a holistic transcendental idealism that enabled them to conceive of the world as whole. This view, best articulated in European thought by Emerson, Blake, Schopenhauer and Eckhart, is what people of an IQ above 145-149 generally reveal as their belief system when asked the right questions.

Similarly, it's impossible to find this out if you ask whether they were believers or atheists. It's not a middle ground -- it's a different direction. The Abrahamic faith has us all looking for an anthropomorphic god in the sky, while the transcendental idealist beliefs of ancient Pagans, Hindus and smart people worldwide have us looking for god in the inherent mathematical patterns of reality.

You are correct about the sharpest of the sharp recognizing that a given religious doctrine points to a holistically united, singular reality... This is something that it is important to understand about religious doctrine generally speaking. The symbolism it employs is not referring to "literal" physical realities, but metaphysics in general.

However, painting the "Abrahamic" faiths as silly cults that worship man-gods beyond the clouds seems intellectually dishonest, or at the very least, ignorant of basic Judeo-Christian concepts of what "God" is, especially within Judaism and Islam. Much more so than the Indo-European religious doctrines as embodied by the Celtic and Nordic beliefs, the Judeo-Christian concept of the divine dispenses with anthropomorphism... In fact, as "pagan" thinker Alain de Benoist points out in a polemic against Judeo-Christianity, the Indo-European concept of the deity really refers to something in a very different category, very much a human-like intelligence or being, while the "Abrahamic" concept of God refers to something that is much more abstract and less isolated to a specific intelligence.... The Judeo-Christian "god" is the totality/unity of metaphysical principles, as opposed to something that is a manifested, individuated being. Christianity manages to bridge these distinctions by making Christ the localized divine being, which is the temporal manifestation of the faceless/formless/abstract, beyond-human absolute.

Anyway, let's not pretend that it hasn't ever been thought by foolish moderns that a belief in the deity Wotan implies a literal belief in a one-eyed, huntsman-sorcerer in the sky. Acting as though all pagans everywhere have always recognized that their pantheonic systems represent principles and metaphysical relationships, while all Judeo-Christians have worshipped a bearded sky-tyrant is incredibly reductive/false.

I think that at some point, ANUS/Corrupt must overcome its confusion about Judeo-Christianity.

To briefly address the original poster - I highly suggest you recognize the incompleteness of your understanding of Christianity and 'religion' in general, before you try to understand its relationship to art. DeathMetalBlackMetal has given you a good starting hint by pointing out that most of great thinkers of Christendom were those who recognized the transcendent unity of reality expressed in their religious doctrines.

Most RAC is moronic peasant-sound that serves as a vehicle for white-nationalist propaganda. The music is usually only an after thought, with politics and aesthetics being in the forefront. In other words, it's not art.

And oh, what politics and aesthetics!... Glory to the white proletariat, beer and tuff-guys! Could it get dumber?

A note on intellectual dishonesty: those who don't wish to see, won't see, and no rational argument or earnest explanation will change that.

Don't waste your time, folks. People who come to this website have usually already gotten past the kind of moron-slobber bullshit floating around on that forum. Leave those who haven't to their fecal-orgies.

I guess it's sort of a truism around here, but it really is remarkable that there is such consistent pattern with the decay of metal bands. It seems that it's almost always the case that a band achieves a purity of expression - the correct synthesis of form and essence - in their earliest recordings, and then inevitably falls short of this subsequently. In some bands this is very dramatic (Emperor, Deicide), while with others it is a creeping absence of something in their works (Slayer, Incantation).